Three years ago, Elizabeth Gnau stood in front of a crowd at Eckstein Common while braving mid-April rain, snow and sleet. As the paper holding her script disintegrated in her hands, the first-year nursing student commended the group surrounding her for bringing awareness to an important cause.
After all, Gnau had organized the whole thing: Marquette’s first ever Out of the Darkness Walk. In partnership with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Marquette became one of over 400 communities nationwide that walk to raise awareness for suicide prevention.
“She saw a need and she wanted to do something,” Ron Gnau, Elizabeth’s dad, said. “That was really impressive.”
The following year, Gnau gathered another group. And she did it again the year after that.
On April 11, 2026, Gnau — now a senior — stepped up to the podium in Eckstein Common one last time. This year’s walk was the fourth she has organized for suicide prevention. Each year has brought different weather, routes and crowds, but the walks have collectively raised over $20,000 for AFSP.
Elizabeth Gnau, a senior in the College of Nursing, has organized the walk each year since 2023. (Photo by Lance Schulteis)
“By joining us, you are part of a national movement,” she told the group of over 130 registered walkers. “Because of you, we are able to continue to fight for a day when no one will die by suicide.”
As the warm, breezy morning turned into an overcast, chilly afternoon, walkers gathered to don stickers and beaded necklaces as signs of support. Friends, family — and even a few dogs — gathered, surrounded by tabling support organizations like Campus Wellness, Campus Ministry and Recovery at Marquette.
“It’s always powerful, it’s always emotional and it’s always full of pride,” Gena Orlando, AFSP’s Wisconsin area director, said about the walk.
Prior to the march through campus, Orlando joined Gnau at Eckstein Common to help sell AFSP merchandise and speak with walkers. Orlando has attended all four of Marquette University’s walks, helping Gnau with administrative work since its first year.
Gnau, a Madison native, contacted the AFSP in 2022 to organize the first walk at Marquette after attending the AFSP’s annual walk at the University of Wisconsin-Madison while in high school.
Under Gnau’s leadership, the 2025-26 school year is Marquette’s first with an AFSP chapter on campus. After working to get the chapter started over her previous three years at Marquette, Gnau was finally able to table at O-Fest in the fall and now has about 30 active members. Among them is Kalliyen Kay, a first-year student in the College of Health Sciences.
After walking past Gnau’s O-Fest table in September, Kay put her name on the member list. Then, after learning about the Out of the Darkness Walk a few months later, she sent Gnau an email.
“I asked about what the walk was and she said she didn’t really have that much help going on into it,” Kay said. “So, I asked if I could volunteer and shadow her.”
Elizabeth Gnau (left) and Kalliyen Kay (right) served as co-chairs for Marquette’s 2026 Out of the Darkness walk. (Photo by Lance Schulteis)
Five months later, Kay sat in the registration booth at the walk as Gnau’s co-chair. As the other half of a two-person organizing team, Kay helped to arrange the event in her first year at Marquette, just as Gnau did in 2023.
“It’s been really awesome to see Kalliyen as a freshman be so ready to be involved and be a leader on campus,” Gnau said. “She’s passionate about this work, which is super necessary for what we’re doing.”
At the walk, Kay quite literally followed in Gnau’s footsteps as she walked from the registration booth to the podium. She, too, took a turn standing in front of the crowd, reading an acknowledgement for participants’ beaded necklaces.
Walkers donning purple beads raised them to remember lost family members and friends. Green beads symbolized personal struggles and blue beads, lifted at the end of Kay’s statements, represented support for suicide prevention.
“It’s definitely cool to learn about the different stories and what it means to be a part of a club that supports this,” Kay said.
Then, following a short send-off, walkers hit the pavement. Friends sorted into groups, faster walkers stayed at the front and Gnau slipped into the crowd to trek the 1.5-mile loop alongside her mom, dad and sister, who drove from Madison to walk for the fourth year in a row.
“[We’re] incredibly proud,” Claire Gnau, Elizabeth’s mom, said. “But, more than that, it’s the thought of all the people who are impacted. When I see people with the different color beads, it becomes less about the event and more about the people that are here.”
When the walkers marched across the pavement — with beads and a purpose — it marked the end of a chapter for Gnau. With the upcoming change of hands, Gnau and Kay know the walk might not look exactly the same next year.
But Gnau hopes that with a new first-year leader, Marquette students will still be walking for suicide prevention for years after she graduates.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988 immediately or text TALK to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Support is also offered at Marquette by visiting the Center for Student Health and Wellness Promotion or the Counseling Center on the third floor of Wellness + Helfaer Recreation.
This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at [email protected].
